I love making pestos and have tried it with all sorts of herbs and nuts. I find making pesto a good way to preserve some seasonal herbs and use it in many recipes when these herbs are out of season.

For this pesto, I have used Kafkalithres and Myronia, which are winter herbs which you can find in the farmers’ market in Greece, from January until late April. I love them raw in salads, cooked in spanakopita, which adds an amazing taste, in omelets and in lots of other Greek dishes, to give extra aroma and taste.

Kafkalithres, Tordylium Apulum or small hartwort, is sgenus of wild plants, used in Greece since antiquity, as pot herbs and culinary herbs. Aristotle mentions this herb and states that it is eaten by female deer after giving birth.

Claudius Galenus, known as Galen (Γαληνός) a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher, considered the second important after Hippocrates, was appointed physician to the gladiators and later when the great plague broke he was summoned by Marcus Aurelius to help out. Unfortunately Marcus Aurelius was persuaded to realease him but later on he became the personal physicial of his son Commodus.

Galenus mentions in his works (300 out of which 150 have survived) how unique the Greek herbs are, not to be found in any other parts of the world. For this reason herbs, plants and seeds were imported from Greece, especially from Crete and were cultivated by the men of the Emperor.

moon carrot, stone parsley – any plant of the genus Seseli having dense umbels of small white or pink flowers and finely divided foliage

Myronia (chervil) is an aromatic plant species in the parsley family. In older posts of mine you will see it mentioned as scandix pectin veneris. At the time, I asked a friend for the English name of the her and she gave me that name.

My friend Mary, of Fit & Fed, left a comment in a previous post I had made regarding these herbs after google searching to find more about them, I found this article.

I quote from Diane Kochillas’ book The Glorious Foods of Greece, about Peloponnese p. 38: «Of all the wild greens in the region, chervil is the most beloved. It appears in countless stews, as well as in pies. The local kitchen boasts two types- kafkalithres, whose leaves are as big as clover but soft, almost downy, and mironia, what we recognize in America as the herb chervil. In these recipes they are interchangeable.»

Until today I am not sure which is the correct translation but even if it is not chervil it will do no harm if you use it.

In this pesto I do not add any cheese. Since I want to store the pesto in the deep freezer, I avoid adding the cheese in for several reasons, one being that it doesn’t freeze well and the other, when we fast, we don’t eat any dairy products so I prefer to keep it vegan.

After using the quantity I need, I then put the remaining into small Tupperware bowls, label them and store them in the deep freezer for a long time, even up to a year. You can use it as it is frozen as you can cut the amount you want easily or thaw it half an hour before using it.

If you want cheese, you can add the traditional Italian cheeses like Parmesan or Romano but I use Greek cheeses like graviera, kefalotyri and halloumi.

In a food processor add the garlic, 1/3 of the olive oil, salt, pepper and pulse a few times.

Add half of the herbs and another 1/3 of the olive oil and pulse.

Add the walnuts, remaining herbs and olive oil and vinegar and pulse a few moretimes.

Store in the refrigerator for a few days or in the deep freezer for a longer life.

Greek cuisine has a lot of similarities with Southern Italian cuisine as both countries are very close to each other, so they have similar climate conditions and products. We see Greek influence in Southern Italian cuisine and we see Italian, mostly Venetian influence in Greek cuisine due to historical factors. Greek colonization in Southern Italy, and Roman and later Venetian occupation in Greece. To this day, we can see the Greek influence in Italy, and Italian influence in Greece, through architecture, music, food and language. It is no wonder why Italians and Greeks have a saying “Una Faccia Una Razza” (pronounced una fatsa una razza in Greek)!

Greece has a similar version of aglio e olio, from the region of Mani (Western Peloponnese). Traditionally this dish is made with myzithra cheese but since we are not eating any dairy products until Easter and wanting to use some courgettes lying in the fridge for a lot of days, I made this bright, light, flavorful and healthy pasta dish, which is perfect for the fasting period of Lent.

I made the same recipe again but a little bit different this time. I did not add the spinach, neither fresh herbs and olives and I used roasted garlic instead of raw garlic. I used Mint pesto, which goes well with courgettes and feta.

When adding the pasta, I crumbled 100 grams feta on top and mixed in 100 ml Greek yoghurt in the pasta. A lovely combination.